Audience: Middle and High School Students
[According to Winsor and Newton, Tyrian purple was once used to show one’s wealth and power]. Photo by Alex Kondratiev from Unsplash.
Throughout history, art has been used as a tool to tell stories, worship religious figures, and entertain the masses. Art gives people the power to express themselves. Its importance in human history cannot be denied, but have you ever stopped to think about what connects these works of art? No matter the birthplace, the style, or the age of a painting, colourants play a huge part in a painting.
A colourant, a substance that colours something, is divided into two categories: pigments and dyes. Pigments are used to give materials, such as paper and plastics, colour. Pigments can be divided into two types: natural (coming from nature) and synthetic (man-made). Dyes are used in a similar way to pigments, but the main difference between the two is that dyes can be used on their own, while pigments need to be added to a binder, a material that holds the pigments to the painting, in order to colour anything.
Organic Pigments
Organic pigments are pigments made up of materials naturally found on Earth. The earliest pieces of art were created with organic pigments. Some examples are chlorophyll (makes plants green), heme (makes blood red), and copper phthalocyanine (a monastral blue used in automobile finish, printing inks, and plastics).
Inorganic Pigments
Inorganic pigments are pigments made up of metal oxides and/or synthetic chemicals. About 180,000 years ago, a Neanderthal man used an inorganic pigment called red ochre, also known as rust, in a cave painting. He was the first person to use this pigment, or any other inorganic pigment. Some other examples of inorganic pigments are ultramarine/lazurite and prussian blue, a dark blue pigment originally made from animal matter, such as blood and the salts of iron. Lead compounds used to be quite common, including lead chromate, a yellow/orange colour commonly used by artists, and lead carbonate, a dense white colour commonly used in Renaissance art and for protecting the exteriors of homes. Unfortunately, due to the incredibly toxic nature of lead, it has since been replaced by titanium dioxide in all modern paint.
Uses of Colour Throughout History
Throughout history, dyes have played an important role in life. Some of the first dyes included mauve (used for postage stamps and wallpaper), red (used for impressionist paintings), and ultramarine/lazurite (used for murals and paintings). In Egypt and China, pigments were washed to purify and strengthen their colour. Specifically, minerals such as malachite, azurite, and cinnabar were being used as pigments. China also used the bright red that came from vermillion, which has lead to the colour finding an important place in the country’s history. Later, the Greeks and Romans used tyrian purple to show one’s wealth and power, because it was complicated and expensive to make. In the Renaissance, the Italians roasted siennas and umbers to make rich brown colours which were commonly used in the paintings of the time. In Germany, a colourmaker accidentally made prussian blue which became the first chemically synthesized colour (elements or compounds being combined in a reaction to make a new compound).
Recent News
In 2009, a reddish magenta coloured pigment was created which can be used to coat cars and buildings as an energy efficient way of keeping them cool. Most magenta pigments are organic, making them extremely sensitive to the ultraviolet rays of the sun due to their instability. Inorganic magenta pigments are rare because they often require cobalt, which makes them dangerous to humans and the environment. The recently discovered pigment is special because it is very stable, and therefore less sensitive to the sun.
Next time you are looking at a piece of art, or even making art yourself, try to appreciate how far we have come in the development of pigments. Those before us worked hard to express themselves with the colours they had access to, all while developing new colours for us to use. The colour on any canvas has a rich history, and with recent developments and our desire for future discoveries, it might also have a colourful future.
Bibliography:
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